


Marvelous Things

by MxMearcstapa



Series: F!Dimileth Week 2020 [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, Blood, Dark, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Dark Fantasy, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dimileth Week (Fire Emblem), Dimileth Week 2020, Dokkalfar, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Floriography, Flowers, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness, Major Character Injury, Mental Illness, Mortal Wounds, Nightmares, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma, Vomiting, Whump, but it's flowers, dimileth, dimileth week, everything just hurts, mental health, no beta we die like Glenn, ooooooookay, seriously don't hang out with the fae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:06:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27016999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MxMearcstapa/pseuds/MxMearcstapa
Summary: “If you dance with me,” she says, still smiling, “then I won’t be alone.”This feels like a very bad idea, even as it feels rude to decline. He shifts awkwardly. Squeezes the bow in his hands a little too tightly, and the wood creaks in protest before he loosens his grip.“I…I’m supposed to be hunting.”“What is a hunt but a dance with something wild?” she replies with a graceful spin. “Dance with me, Dimitri!”Dimileth fairy AU in which Byleth is a dökkálfar, and the Prince of Faerghus is so infatuated that he coughs up flowers.For Dimileth Week 2020, Fairy AU
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Series: F!Dimileth Week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1968583
Comments: 10
Kudos: 49





	Marvelous Things

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all are read up on your Fire Emblem Heroes deeplore and floriography, right?? Cool.
> 
> CW: blood, vomiting/retching, power imbalance, trauma, mental health/illness, suicidal thoughts, major character death/mortal wounding, nightmares, fae shenanigans, whump, this is all just feelsbad, man, and I'm sorry if I missed a trigger.
> 
> Remember the angst I talked about yesterday? Most of it's here. 
> 
> And, pro tip, don't talk to the fae, Blaiddyd. *shakes head*

He sees her first in the moonlight.

He is eleven, nearly twelve, and it is autumn in Fhirdiad. The chill of the air does nothing to deter Gustave from waking him and another boy in the dead of night and setting them loose on the mountainside. He hands them each a bow. He says “go catch a deer” and disappears.

Dimitri is afraid. It is dark, it is cold, and he is not a good shot even by daylight.

That, and within moments, he is lost.

Every rustle of leaves is an encroaching demonic beast. Every howl of the wind is a hungry lone wolf. A branch catches his cloak and holds fast, and he screams before sinking to his knees in embarrassment.

Against all logic and almost unnaturally, a stag bounds into the brambles beside him, looks him over without concern, and leaps away. Dimitri scrambles to follow it.

He bursts into a clearing.

The stag is gone.

But there is a girl.

She can’t be much older than he is, but stranger than the fact that she is here at all, dancing alone under the full moon in a circle of mushrooms, are the dark, iridescent wings that sprout from her back.

He blinks once. Twice. Rubs his eyes.

She is still there.

And they are actual wings, shimmering and split like a butterfly’s, though they span almost her entire body, and she is just about taller than he is. Up close, he can see they are jet-black but for the hindwings—those are a deep teal, the same color as her hair.

He can also see that she is in no way dressed for a Faerghus autumn. Black shorts, a loose black tunic, black patterned stockings—all her clothing is dark as her wings but for the golden medallion that bounces against her chest as she twirls, the pink and white ribbons only half-braided into her disheveled hair, and the single flower woven into the braids with petals like the moon and a heart black as night.

Before he can stop himself, he asks:

“Aren’t you cold?”

The girl stops entirely, still as a stone. With a sudden, primal fear, Dimitri wishes he could take the words back. She fixes him with eyes large and light. There is, to his growing concern, something familiar about them.

“Hello,” she says.

“Hello,” Dimitri gulps back. What is she doing out here alone, unarmed and unarmored? Gustave knows where he is (he hopes) and expects him back (he hopes again), but something tells him this girl has not been kept for quite some time.

Again, his mouth moves without his consent, “Aren’t you lonely out here by yourself?”

The girl looks around slowly, like she can see something he can’t, and then looks and him and grins. It’s mesmerizing—beautiful and terrifying all at once. A chill runs down his spine, only slightly preceding a gust of wind—but it’s close enough that he can pretend the wind is the cause.

“If you dance with me,” she says, still smiling, “then I won’t be alone.”

This feels like a _very bad idea_ , even as it feels rude to decline. He shifts awkwardly. Squeezes the bow in his hands a little too tightly, and the wood creaks in protest before he loosens his grip.

“I…I’m supposed to be hunting.”

“What is a hunt but a dance with something wild?” she replies with a graceful spin. “Dance with me, Dimitri!”

He doesn’t remember telling her his name. In fact, he is absolutely certain he has _not_ told her. But, as Crown Prince of Faerghus, he is used to people knowing his name, so it’s not the strangest thing—not the strangest thing tonight by _far_.

Dimitri does not know why he steps forward, but something about her outstretched hand calls to him. The bow slips from his fingertips, all but forgotten, as they begin to waltz in the moonlight.

He remembers enjoying himself.

He remembers her hands are so cold that he worries she’ll get frostbite.

He remembers her laughing at that.

The morning light dawns on him, and he wakes on the mountainside, shivering. The warmth of the sun does not chase the chill of his nightmare, of being lost and alone—both of which, he still is. As the sun rises further, Dimitri thinks he recognizes a trail that will take him home.

Beside him, a deer collapses, dead as a doornail, one of his arrows protruding from its heart.

* * *

He sees her next after Duscur. Every night for the next three years, after he loses everyone and everything to the flames, she holds him, her cool hand running through his hair as tears stream down his face. The cold metal of her brooch pressed against his head leaves a mark like a star that is gone by morning light, as always, is she.

The nightmares are ever-present, waking or sleeping. The voices of the dead are arrant and insatiable. No time or state of being is better than any other—except for the sliver of time between when he crawls into bed and when he falls asleep, because that is when she comes to him.

He does not think to ask her name. With everything else, it seems unimportant, and he is always so _tired_.

As he grows older, she does, too. Dimitri recognizes that they are no longer children—that she has had a woman’s body for some time—and the thought makes his palms sweat and his mouth dry. If she notices the tension—or if she feels anything similar—she gives no indication.

The night before he leaves for the Officer’s Academy, Dimitri tells her that she is beautiful. That, ethereal and ephemeral, she reminds him of the goddess. She smiles, and it does not meet her eyes. That night, she places a kiss on his brow, and it feels like a burn. She does not return the next night, but the nightmares do. On his pillow rests the flower from her hair, its petals now red as blood.

He clutches the flower to his chest, the memory of her kiss indelible in his heart.

* * *

He coughs up the first flower petals in Guardian Moon at the Officers’ Academy. Small petals in the shape of hearts, pink and purple. Hydrangeas, Ashe tells him. His classmates look at him with knowing smiles and more than a little unease. They have not seen him spend enough time with anyone to justify the kind of feelings that become flowers.

“So, who is it?”

Dimitri can only chuckle. “I don’t even know her name.”

Their smiles drop as the unease grows. He reassures them that it will be fine. He is always putting on a brave face for them, and they let him, for fear of the consequences otherwise.

The mask is slipping, though, and he cannot keep it up forever. Especially not as the Pegasus Moon wanes, and the coughing becomes retching, the petals whole flowers. Asphodels, foxgloves, carnations, and columbines—followed by things that look less beautiful flecked with blood and more like the wretched earth. Toadflax. Creeping willow. Wormwood.

And, throughout it all, flowers with petals like the moon and hearts black as night. Anemones, Dedue tells him. They are the only flower Dimitri recognizes, duplicates of the red-petaled flower pressed between the pages of his Teachings of Seiros.

His friends reek of fear. Dimitri is only relieved, his single regret that he cannot do more for the dead.

When Edelgard is revealed to be the Flame Emperor, every feeling left in him turns to hatred.

The flowers wither within him as the feeling of affection, too, dies.

* * *

She sees him first in a dream.

When he wakes, he does not remember her. She is told not to take it personally—mortals seldom remember their dreams—but the nightmare she brings haunts him for several moons, and in a way, that is like being remembered.

She sees him next on the side of a mountain. There is a bow in his hands and fear in his eyes—but beneath that, something softer.

He could have asked her anything. Who she was, what she was doing, if she meant him harm. Instead, he asked,

“Aren’t you cold?”

She has not been cold for a long, long time, not since she was a child and drank the nectar that granted her these wings. But it is sweet of him to ask, in any case.

He is a fool to dance with her. Were it her wish, she could have left him there dancing for the rest of his days. But he dances well, and his hands are warm, so instead, she leaves him another nightmare.

The deer she takes down for him as a gift as much as a challenge. Let him try to forget her now.

But he does, she is told, as mortals do.

The third time she sees him, it is work and play both.

She has been scrutinized. _Watched_. Her favor for the boy is evident, but the nightmares she weaves are dark and lingering—and most importantly, without peer. She is the best that can be sent after he loses everything to the flames, though the others are hesitant to send her back to him.

_It’s unnatural_ , they whisper when they think she cannot hear, _to regard a mortal boy so._ But her domain is loneliness, and so she hears them always.

The dream is unpleasant. The most unpleasant she can conjure. It is fear and terror and agony. It is a masterpiece in and of itself. Even were she not meant to repeat it for years to come, it would haunt him in the light.

The first night, he wakes, bawling—and before she can wonder why she does, she reaches for him. With eyes like broken glass, he looks at her.

“It’s you,” he whispers. She is so startled by his recognition that she runs.

“Wait!” he cries, reaching after her. The timbre of his voice gives her pause—so plaintive, so aching, so _similar_ to her own from a time long past—that she turns back.

“Don’t go,” he pleads.

So she doesn’t. She holds him each night as he mourns and attempts to soothe the despair from the nightmare she crafted especially for him. Her mixed intent sways her hold, and the nightmare spirals out of her control.

She is lauded. The others believe it intentional. If nothing else, under the guise of maintenance, it allows her to stay near him. She wishes fervently that she could undo it every time he wakes up screaming. But time makes fools of everyone, even her kind.

Time passes. He grows from a boy into a young man. She grows alongside him, too, more lovely and severe, full where he is lanky. Still she stays with him—at least, until the morning light. Then she slips back into the shadows, where she is most comfortable. Despite his obvious curiosity, he never explores her body; he merely holds her and lets himself be held.

Until the night he tells her she is beautiful, his hand brushing the hair from her face. There is something in his smile that makes her squirm, something clear in his eyes that makes her heart stutter.

He tells her she is like the goddess, the one who loves all creatures but for the ones that bring bad dreams. Something painful takes root in her chest. She is meant to be enticing. To draw in the lonely, the wanting. She is meant to be admired—but not appreciated.

To stay with him would invite disaster for them both, so she leaves. He has already taken so much of her, but she leaves him with a little more—a kiss on his brow.

The flower she leaves for him as a gift as much as a message. If he has any sense at all, he will forget her, as (she hopes) mortals do.

As it happens, he has no sense. Only feeling. Feelings of guilt, feelings of remorse, feelings of nostalgia—and those feelings become voices in his head and flowers in his gut. He is still dreaming her nightmare and holding her flower, and she wants to scream at him to _let go_ , because if one doesn’t kill him, the other will.

Perhaps it is fortunate that the flowers die first.

Perhaps it is less kind.

The years that follow are not, in turn, kind to him, biting and clawing bits of the boy she loved until all that is left of him are scars and screams.

Three armies clash on a vast field in a decisive battle, and it is there that she seeks him at last. The loneliness in him cries out so strongly that it digs into her heart like thorns. Even had she been able to resist the siren call of her domain, she would have sped to his side to palliate it.

She remembers him blue and gold. Here, covered in spears, there is too much red.

She kneels in front of him. Lifts his chin with a gentle hand. His single blue eye fixes on her, pupil dilating with recognition.

“It’s you,” he whispers. She nods and tucks his hair behind his ear.

“Byleth,” she murmurs, cradling his head in her lap. “My name is Byleth.”

“Byleth,” he repeats, closing his eye. With a labored breath, he sighs. “Thank you for returning.”

Her vision blurs, her eyes stinging, before she realizes she is crying. Coughing. Small petals in the shape of hearts, blue as his eye. He smiles at her, but there is fear on his face. His voice shakes.

“Will you stay with me this time?”

She leans down to kiss him.

Her lips are nectar-sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to begin by apologizing. ^_^ I had a horrible vision, and it grew into an edgy, unwieldy beast. It's not a happy story, but I hope you enjoyed it in any case! I promise tomorrow's piece will be happier by far.
> 
> Title inspiration is the song "Marvelous Things" by Eisley.
> 
> Thank you for reading! <3 If you liked this, please leave me a comment.


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